miles; and the work of preparation was carried on under the guidance of
Gaston of Beam by the crews of some Genoese vessels which had recently
anchored at Jaffa. So passed away more than thirty days, days of intense
suffering to the besiegers. At Antioch they had been distressed chiefly
by famine: in place of this wretchedness they had here the greater
miseries of thirst. The enemy had carefully destroyed every place which
might serve as a receptacle of water; and in seeking for it over miles
of desolate country they were exposed to the harassing attacks of Moslem
horsemen. Nor had visions and miracles improved the morals or discipline
of the camp; and the ghost of Adhemar of Puy appeared to rebuke the
horrible sins which were drawing down upon them the judgments of the
Almighty. Better service was done by the generosity of Tancred, who made
up his quarrel with Raymond: and the enthusiasm of the crusaders was
again roused by the preaching of Arnold and the hermit Peter. The
narrative of the siege of Jericho in the book of Joshua suggested
probably the procession in which the clergy singing hymns preceded the
laity round the walls of the city.
The Saracens on the ramparts mocked their devotions by throwing dirt
upon crucifixes; but they paid a terrible price for these insults. On
the next day the final assault began, and was carried on through the day
with the same monotony of brute force and carnage which marked all the
operations of this merciless war. The darkness of night brought no rest.
The actual combat was suspended, but the besieged were incessantly
occupied in repairing the breaches made by the assailants, while these
were busied in making their dispositions for the last mortal conflict.
In the midst of that deadly struggle, when it seemed that the Cross must
after all go down before the Crescent, a knight was seen on Mount
Olivet, waving his glistening shield to rouse the champions of the Holy
Sepulchre to the supreme effort. "It is St. George the Martyr who has
come again to help us," cried Godfrey, and at his words the crusaders
started up without a feeling of fatigue and carried everything before
them.
The day, we are told, was Friday, the hour was three in the afternoon--
the moment at which the last cry from the cross announced the
accomplishment of the Saviour's passion--when Letold of Tournay stood,
the first victorious champion of the Cross, on the walls of Jerusalem.
Next to him came, we are told, his brother Engelbert; the third was
Godfrey. Tancred with the two Roberts stormed the gate of St. Stephen;
the Provençals climbed the ramparts by ladders, and the conquest of
Jerusalem was achieved. The insults offered a little while ago to the
crucifixes were avenged by Godfrey's orders in the massacre of hundreds;
the carnage in the Mosque of Omar swept away the bodies of thousands in
a deluge of human blood. The Jews were all burnt alive in their
synagogues. The horses of the crusaders, who rode up to the porch of the
Temple, were--so the story goes--up to the knees in the loathsome
stream; and the forms of Christian knights hacking and hewing the bodies
of the living and the dead furnished a pleasant commentary on the sermon
of Urban at Clermont.
From the duties of slaughter these disciples of the Lamb of God passed
to those of devotion. Bareheaded and barefooted, clad in a robe of pure
white linen, in an ecstasy of joy and thankfulness mingled with profound
contrition, Godfrey entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and knelt
at the tomb of his Lord. With groans and tears his followers came, each
in his turn, to offer his praises for the divine mercy which had
vouchsafed this triumph to the armies of Christendom. With feverish
earnestness they poured forth the vows which bound them to sin no more,
and the excitement of prayer and slaughter, perhaps of both combined,
led them to see everything which might be needed to give effect to the
closing scene of this appalling tragedy. As the saints had arisen from
their graves when the Son of Man gave up the ghost on Calvary, so the
spirits of the pilgrims who had died on the terrible journey came to
take part in the great thanksgiving. Foremost among them was Adhemar of
Puy, rejoicing in the prayers for forgiveness and the resolutions of
repentance which promised a new era of peace upon earth and of good-will
toward all men.
With departed saints were mingled living men who deserved all the honor
which might be paid to them. The backsliding of the hermit Peter was
blotted out of the memory of those who remembered only the fiery
eloquence which had first called them to their now triumphant
pilgrimage, and the zeal which had stirred the heart of Christendom to
cut short the tyranny of the Unbeliever in the birthland of
Christianity. The assembled throng fell down at his feet, and gave
thanks to God, who had vouchsafed to them such a teacher. His task was
done, and in the annals of the time Peter is heard of no more.
On this dreadful day Tancred had spared three hundred captives to whom
he had given a standard as a pledge of his protection and a guarantee of
their safety. Such misplaced mercy was a crime in the eyes of the
crusaders. The massacre of the first day may have been aggravated by the
ungovernable excitement of victory; but it was resolved that on the next
day there should be offered up a more solemn and deliberate sacrifice.
The men whom Tancred had spared were all murdered; and the wrath of
Tancred was roused, not by their fate, but by an act which called his
honor into question. The butchery went on with impartial completeness,
old and young, decrepit men and women, mothers with their infants, boys
and girls, young men and maidens in the bloom of their vigor, all were
mowed down, and their bodies mangled until heads and limbs were tossed
together in awful chaos. A few were hidden away by Raymond of Toulouse;
his motive, however, was not mercy, but the prospects of gain in the
slave market. After this great act of faith and devotion the streets of
the Holy City were washed by Saracen prisoners; but whether these were
butchered when their work was ended we are not told.
Four centuries and a half had passed away, when these things were done,
since Omar had entered Jerusalem as a conqueror and knelt outside the
Church of Constantine, that his followers might not trespass within it
on the privileges of the Christians. The contrast is at the least marked
between the Caliph of the Prophet and the children of the Holy Catholic
Church.
When, the business of the slaughter being ended, the chiefs met to
choose a king for the realm which they had won with their swords, one
man only appeared to whom the crown could fitly be offered. Baldwin was
lord of Edessa; Bohemond ruled at Antioch; Hugh of Vermandois and
Stephen of Chartres had returned to Europe; Robert of Flanders cared not
to stay; the Norman Robert had no mind to forfeit the duchy which he had
mortgaged; and Raymond was discredited by his avarice, and in part also
by his traffic in the visions of Peter Barthelemy. But in the city where
his Lord had worn the thorny crown, the veteran leader who had looked on
ruthless slaughter without blanching and had borne his share in swelling
the stream of blood would wear no earthly diadem nor take the title of
king. He would watch over his Master's grave and the interests of his
worshippers under the humble guise of Baron and Defender of the Holy
Sepulchre; and as such, a fortnight after his election, Godfrey departed
to do battle with the hosts of the Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, who now
felt that the loss of Jerusalem was too high a price for the humiliation
of his rivals. The conflict took place at Ascalon, and the Fatimite army
was miserably routed. Godfrey returned to Jerusalem, to hang the sword
and standard of the Sultan before the Holy Sepulchre and to bid farewell
to the pilgrims who were now to set out on their homeward journey. He
retained, with three hundred knights under Tancred, only two thousand
foot soldiers for the defence of his kingdom; and so ended the first act
in the great drama of the crusades.
FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER OF KNIGHTS TEMPLARS
A.D. 1118
CHARLES G. ADDISON
(Among the military orders of past ages, that of the Knights Templars,
founded for the defence of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, with its
lofty motive, its superb organization and discipline, and its history
extending over nearly two centuries, is justly accounted one of the most
illustrious. At the period when this extraordinary and romantic order
came into existence, the contrasting spirits of warlike enterprise and
monastic retirement were drawing men, some from the field to the
cloister, others from the life of ascetic piety to the scenes of strife.
There appeared a strange blending of these two tendencies, which indeed
was the leading characteristic of the time. This union of the religious
with the militant spirit had been promoted by the enthusiasm of the
crusades which had already been undertaken, and among the crusaders
themselves the blended spiritual and military ideal of the holy war had
its complete development. Let us recall the reasons and the beginnings
of the crusades themselves.
Upon the legendary discovery of the Holy Sepulchre by Helena, the mother
of Constantine, about three hundred years after the death of Christ, and
the consequent erection, as it is said, by her great son--the first
Christian emperor of Rome--of the magnificent Church of the Holy
Sepulchre over the sacred spot, a tide of pilgrimage set in toward
Jerusalem which increased in strength as Christianity gradually spread
throughout Europe. When in A.D. 637 the Holy City was surrendered to the
Saracens, the caliph Omar gave guarantees for the security of the
Christian population. Under this safeguard the pilgrimages to Jerusalem
continued to increase, until in 1064 the Holy Sepulchre was visited by
seven thousand pilgrims, led by an archbishop and three bishops. But in
1065 Jerusalem was taken by the Turcomans, who massacred three thousand
citizens, and placed the command of the city in savage hands. Terrible
oppression of the Christians there followed; the Patriarch of Jerusalem
was dragged by the hair of his head over the sacred pavement of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cast into a dungeon for ransom;
extortion, imprisonment, and massacre were indiscriminately visited upon
the people.
Such were the conditions that aroused the indignant spirit of
Christendom and prepared it for the cry of Peter the Hermit, which awoke
the wild enthusiasm of the crusades. When Jerusalem was captured by the
crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099, the zeal of pilgrimage
burst forth anew. But although Jerusalem was delivered, Palestine was
still infested with the infidels, who made it as hazardous as before for
the pilgrims entering there. Some means for their protection must be
found, and out of this necessity grew the great military order of which
the following pages treat.)
To alleviate the dangers and distresses to which the pilgrim enthusiasts
were exposed; to guard the honor of the saintly virgins and matrons, and
to protect the gray hairs of the venerable palmers, nine noble knights
formed a holy brotherhood-in-arms, and entered into a solemn compact to
aid one another in clearing the highways of infidels and robbers, and in
protecting the pilgrims through the passes and defiles of the mountains
to the Holy City. Warmed with the religious and military fervor of the
day, and animated by the sacredness of the cause to which they had
devoted their swords, they called themselves the "Poor Fellow-soldiers
of Jesus Christ."
They renounced the world and its pleasures, and in the Holy Church of
the Resurrection, in the presence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, they
embraced vows of perpetual chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the
manner of monks. Uniting in themselves the two most popular qualities of
the age, devotion and valor, and exercising them in the most popular of
all enterprises, the protection of the pilgrims and of the road to the
Holy Sepulchre, they speedily acquired a vast reputation and a splendid
renown.
At first, we are told, they had no church and no particular place of
abode, but in the year of our Lord 1118--nineteen years after the
conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders--they had rendered such good and
acceptable service to the Christians that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem,
granted them a place of habitation within the sacred enclosure of the
Temple on Mount Moriah, amid those holy and magnificent structures,
partly erected by the Christian emperor Justinian and partly built by
the caliph Omar, which were then exhibited by the monks and priests of
Jerusalem, whose restless zeal led them to practise on the credulity of
the pilgrims, and to multiply relics and all objects likely to be sacred
in their eyes, as the Temple of Solomon, whence the "Poor
Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" came thenceforth to be known by the
name of "the Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon."
A few remarks in elucidation of the name "Templars," or "Knights of the
Temple," may not be unacceptable.
By the Mussulmans the site of the great Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah
has always been regarded with peculiar veneration. Mahomet, in the first
year of the publication of the _Koran_, directed his followers, when at
prayer, to turn their faces toward it, and pilgrimages have constantly
been made to the holy spot by devout Moslems. On the conquest of
Jerusalem by the Arabians, it was the first care of the caliph Omar to
rebuild "the Temple of the Lord." Assisted by the principal chieftains
of his army, the Commander of the Faithful undertook the pious office of
clearing the ground with his own hands, and of tracing out the
foundations of the magnificent mosque which now crowns with its dark and
swelling dome the elevated summit of Mount Moriah.
This great house of prayer, the most holy Mussulman temple in the world
after that of Mecca, is erected over the spot where "Solomon began to
build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord
appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in
the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite."
It remains to this day in a state of perfect preservation, and is one of
the finest specimens of Saracenic architecture in existence. It is
entered by four spacious doorways, each door facing one of the cardinal
points: the _Bab el D'Jannat_ (or "Gate of the Garden"), on the north;
the _Bab el Kebla_, (or "Gate of Prayer"), on the south; the _Bab ibn el
Daoud_ (or "Gate of the Son of David"), on the east; and the _Bab el
Garbi_, on the west. By the Arabian geographers it is called _Beit
Allah_ ("the House of God"), also _Beit Almokaddas_ or _Beit Almacdes_
("the Holy House"). From it Jerusalem derives its Arabic name, _El Kods_
("the Holy"), _El Schereef_ ("the Noble"), and _El Mobarek_ ("the
Blessed"); while the governors of the city, instead of the customary
high-sounding titles of sovereignty and dominion, take the simple title
of _Hami_ (or "Protectors").
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders, the crescent was torn
down from the summit of this famous Mussulman temple, and was replaced
by an immense golden cross, and the edifice was then consecrated to the
services of the Christian religion, but retained its simple appellation
of "the Temple of the Lord." William, Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gives an interesting account of this famous
edifice as it existed in his time, during the Latin dominion. He speaks
of the splendid mosaic work, of the Arabic characters setting forth the
name of the founder and the cost of the undertaking, and of the famous
rock under the centre of the dome, which is to this day shown by the
Moslems as the spot whereon the destroying angel stood, "with his drawn
sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." This rock, he informs
us, was left exposed and uncovered for the space of fifteen years after
the conquest of the Holy City by the crusaders, but was, after that
period, cased with a handsome altar of white marble, upon which the
priests daily said mass.
To the south of this holy Mussulman temple, on the extreme edge of the
summit of Mount Moriah, and resting against the modern walls of the town
of Jerusalem, stands the venerable Church of the Virgin, erected by the
emperor Justinian, whose stupendous foundations, remaining to this day,
fully justify the astonishing description given of the building by
Procopius. That writer informs us that in order to get a level surface
for the erection of the edifice, it was necessary, on the east and south
sides of the hill, to raise up a wall of masonry from the valley below,
and to construct a vast foundation, partly composed of solid stone and
partly of arches and pillars. The stones were of such magnitude that
each block required to be transported in a truck drawn by forty of the
Emperor's strongest oxen; and to admit of the passage of these trucks it
was necessary to widen the roads leading to Jerusalem. The forests of
Lebanon yielded their choicest cedars for the timbers of the roof; and a
quarry of variegated marble, seasonably discovered in the adjoining
mountains, furnished the edifice with superb marble columns.
The interior of this interesting structure, which still remains at
Jerusalem, after a lapse of more than thirteen centuries, in an
excellent state of preservation, is adorned with six rows of columns,
from whence spring arches supporting the cedar beams and timbers of the
roof; and at the end of the building is a round tower, surmounted by a
dome. The vast stones, the walls of masonry, and the subterranean
colonnade raised to support the southeast angle of the platform whereon
the church is erected are truly wonderful, and may still be seen by
penetrating through a small door and descending several flights of steps
at the southeast corner of the enclosure. Adjoining the sacred edifice
the Emperor erected hospitals, or houses of refuge, for travellers, sick
people, and mendicants of all nations; the foundations whereof, composed
of handsome Roman masonry, are still visible on either side of the
southern end of the building.
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems this venerable church was
converted into a mosque, and was called D'Jame al Acsa; it was enclosed,
together with the great Mussulman "Temple of the Lord" erected by the
caliph Omar, within a large area by a high stone wall, which runs around
the edge of the summit of Mount Moriah and guards from the profane tread
of the unbeliever the whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the
gorgeous Temple of the wisest of kings.
When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the D'Jame al Acsa, with
the various buildings constructed around it, became the property of the
kings of Jerusalem, and is denominated by William of Tyre "the Palace,"
or "Royal House to the south of the Temple of the Lord, vulgarly called
the 'Temple of Solomon.'" It was this edifice or temple on Mount Moriah
which was appropriated to the use of the "Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus
Christ," as they had no church and no particular place of abode, and
from it they derived their name of "Knights Templars."
James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting account of the
holy places, thus speaks of the temple of the Knights Templars: "There
is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple of immense spaciousness and
extent, from which the brethren of the Knighthood of the Temple derive
their name of 'Templars,' which is called the 'Temple of Solomon,'
perhaps to distinguish it from the one above described, which is
specially called the 'Temple of the Lord.'" He moreover informs us in
his oriental history that "in the 'Temple of the Lord' there is an abbot
and canons regular; and be it known that the one is the 'Temple of the
_Lord_,' and the other the 'Temple of the _Chivalry_.' These are
_clerks_; the others are _knights_."
The canons of the "Temple of the Lord" conceded to the "Poor
Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" the large court extending between that
building and the Temple of Solomon; the King, the Patriarch, and the
prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom assigned them
various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and support, and, the
order being now settled in a regular place of abode, the knights soon
began to entertain more extended views and to seek a larger theatre for
the exercise of their holy profession.
Their first aim and object had been, as before mentioned, simply to
protect the poor pilgrims on their journey backward and forward from the
sea-coast to Jerusalem; but as the hostile tribes of Mussulmans, which
everywhere surrounded the Latin kingdom, were gradually recovering from
the stupefying terror into which they had been plunged by the successful
and exterminating warfare of the first crusaders, and were assuming an
aggressive and threatening attitude, it was determined that the holy
warriors of the temple should, in addition to the protection of
pilgrims, make the defence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, of the
Eastern Church, and of all the holy places a part of their particular
profession.
The two most distinguished members of the fraternity were Hugh de Payens
and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, or St. Omer, two valiant soldiers of the
cross, who had fought with great credit and renown at the siege of
Jerusalem. Hugh de Payens was chosen by the knights to be superior of
the new religious and military society, by the title of "the Master of
the Temple"; and he has, in consequence, been generally called the
founder of the order.
The name and reputation of the Knights Templars speedily spread
throughout Europe, and various illustrious pilgrims of the Far West
aspired to become members of the holy fraternity. Among these was Fulk,
Count of Anjou, who joined the society as a married brother (1120), and
annually remitted the order thirty pounds of silver. Baldwin, King of
Jerusalem, foreseeing that great advantages would accrue to the Latin
kingdom by the increase of the power and numbers of these holy warriors,
exerted himself to extend the order throughout all Christendom, so that
he might, by means of so politic an institution, keep alive the holy
enthusiasm of the West, and draw a constant succor from the bold and
warlike races of Europe for the support of his Christian throne and
kingdom.
St. Bernard, the holy abbot of Clairvaux, had been a great admirer of
the Templars. He wrote a letter to the Count of Champagne, on his
entering the order (1123), praising the act as one of eminent merit in
the sight of God; and it was determined to enlist the all-powerful
influence of this great ecclesiastic in favor of the fraternity. "By a
vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible
world, by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of
Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe and the founder of one hundred and
sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his
apostolical censures; France, England, and Milan consulted and obeyed
his judgment in a schism of the Church; the debt was repaid by the
gratitude of Innocent II; and his successor, Eugenius III, was the
friend and disciple of the holy St. Bernard."
To this learned and devout prelate two Knights Templars were despatched
with the following letter:
"Baldwin, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, King of Jerusalem and
Prince of Antioch, to the venerable Father Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux;
health and regard.
"The Brothers of the Temple, whom the Lord hath deigned to raise up, and
whom by an especial providence he preserves for the defence of this
kingdom, desiring to obtain from the Holy See the confirmation of their
institution and a rule for their particular guidance, we have determined
to send to you the two knights, Andrew and Gondemar, men as much
distinguished by their military exploits as by the splendor of their
birth, to obtain from the Pope the approbation of their order, and to
dispose his holiness to send succor and subsidies against the enemies of
the faith, reunited in their design to destroy us and to invade our
Christian territories.
"Well knowing the weight of your mediation with God and his vicar upon
earth, as well as with the princes and powers of Europe, we have thought
fit to confide to you these two important matters, whose successful
issue cannot be otherwise than most agreeable to ourselves. The statutes
we ask of you should be so ordered and arranged as to be reconcilable
with the tumult of the camp and the profession of arms; they must, in
fact, be of such a nature as to obtain favor and popularity with the
Christian princes.
"Do you then so manage that we may, through you, have the happiness of
seeing this important affair brought to a successful issue, and address
for us to Heaven the incense of your prayers."